Editorial

ANNUAL MEETING.

The next annual meeting of the American Missionary Association will be held in Northampton, Mass., in the Edwards Church, commencing at three o'clock Tuesday afternoon, October 21st. Rev. Frank W. Gunsaulus, D.D., of Chicago, Ill., will preach the sermon. On the last page of the cover will be found directions as to membership and other items of interest. Fuller details regarding the reception of delegates and their entertainment, together with rates at hotels and railroad reductions, will be given in the religious press. A meeting of unusual interest is expected, and we hope our friends will be present in full attendance.

For notice of Woman's Meeting, see page 318.

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The holding of our Annual Meeting in Northampton will call up some very remarkable associations. Northampton was the home of Jonathan Edwards, who was not only the eloquent preacher and profound theologian, but the missionary to the neighboring Stockbridge Indians. It was also the home of his son-in-law, David Brainerd, who was the typical self-denying martyr-missionary to the Indians in New Jersey. It was the home of the Tappan family, two of whose sons, Arthur and Lewis, were among the early founders and most valued friends of this Association. In June, 1848, the Tappan family held a joyous family reunion in Northampton, continuing for a week.

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Frederick Douglass is hopeful. In a recent address he says: "A great change has taken place among the colored race—vast and wonderful has it been. It seems as if we had realized the vision of St. John when he saw a new heaven and a new earth. But the change has come at last. The time has come when we can look our fellow-citizens in the face and share in the glory of the country."

No man has a better right to say this than he, for his life has touched the degraded condition of the slave and the exalted position of an Embassador of this great Republic. He adds: "Some talk of exterminating our race, and others say we will soon die out, but I tell you both are impossible. If slavery could not kill us, liberty won't." Liberty ought to do more than save them alive. It ought to educate, elevate and Christianize them.

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The Independent quotes from Dr. Mayo's address before the American Social Science Association on "The Third Estate," in which the Doctor, refers to the strange population of the great Southern mountain world—nearly two millions at present—as a body of people that sends forth a louder cry for the missionary of modern civilization than any other portion of the Republic, and adds:

"What is also said by the Unitarian, Dr. Mayo, of the need of missionary work for this class of the Southern whites, calls for an emphasis even stronger than we could put on any political conclusion. We pass this patriotic appeal along to those who have the wealth that is seeking a worthy object on which to expend itself. There are missionary societies whose business it is to do this. For the Congregationalista, the American Missionary Association will for a very moderate amount establish a church and an academy in any one of a hundred counties inhabited by these people, and what a man with a million dollars to expend could do we hardly dare to say. For the Presbyterians, the Board of Home Missions will do the same; for the Methodists, their Missionary Society; for the Episcopalians, their board of Domestic Missions; for the Baptists, their Home Mission Society; and so on for all the religious bodies. But will not a goodly company of wealthy men supplement what the churches are doing in their collections, by large gifts for this special, most needy, most fruitful, and we declare most neglected mission work of the nation?"

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Agitations on the surface are significant mainly as they are connected with the larger movements of the deeper waters beneath. The re-election of Speaker Reed to Congress, and the contest for the re-election of Mr. Breckinridge in Arkansas; the Federal Election Bill, which proposes to secure a free ballot for all men irrespective of color, and the Convention in Mississippi, which aimed avowedly to curtail the voting of the colored people—all these derive their importance from their relation to the gravest problem of American statesmanship. That problem will not be settled by the results of either of these current questions. For at the bottom the real question is: Shall knowledge and character and property become the possession of the colored race, and they thus be prepared for their place in American politics, industry and prosperity, or will they be allowed for the lack of these things to be crushed back into a condition of semi-slavery or be goaded to resistance or discouraged in poverty, pauperism and degradation? That is a fundamental question. For that, men should read, think, pray and work.

The Federal Election Bill And The Mississippi Convention.

The ultimate aim of the Federal Election Bill in Congress, and of the Constitutional Convention in Mississippi, point in diametrically opposite directions. They cannot be harmonized, and there is no middle way between them. The Election Bill contemplates a "free ballot and fair count" for every voter, including the Negro. The Mississippi Convention aims to restrict Negro suffrage. In an address delivered by the President of the Convention, September 11th, he is reported to have said that: "He did not propose to mince matters and hide behind a subterfuge, but if asked by anybody if it was the purpose of the Convention to restrict Negro suffrage, he would frankly say, 'Yes; that is what we are here for.'" This Convention proposes to secure its object not by the force and fraud of earlier days, but by constitutional and legal methods—or at least by what has constitutional and legal forms. All this, however, is another attempt to achieve the impracticable. As the Negro grows in intelligence and numbers, he will claim his right to vote.

On the other hand, the Congressional Election Bill or any other legislation intended to secure the privilege of voting to the Negro, if made practical, means a good deal. If it is intended only to pass laws that shall be merely "glittering generalities" to vindicate the historic record of the Republican party, or to sanction its Platform and the Inaugural of the President—that is easily done and will, of course, amount to nothing—except as a political manoeuvre. But if the movement "means business," and is to be pushed to its legitimate result, then two things must be done: the Negro must be qualified to vote and to be voted for; to elect officers and to hold office. If the mass of illiterate and impoverished Negroes are to be represented in State Legislatures and in Congress by persons as ignorant and poor as they are themselves, these representatives will, of course, if in the majority, be liable to rule and ruin; if in a large minority, they will hold a balance of power that may easily be controlled by demagogues. To educate this mass up to the point of intelligence and the acquisition of property is America's great duty and the guaranty of her safety.

There is one thing more about it. We have said that if the Negro is to have the free exercise of the ballot, he will insist on being voted for as well as voting. If the Negroes have power to elect, they will wish to elect some of their own number. They will not, and certainly they ought not to vote for a man simply because he is black. They should vote for the best qualified man whether he is black or white. If they have the power they will certainly elect some of their own number. But this means, if it means anything good, that there shall be those of their own number who are qualified to hold office and to hold it honorably to themselves and usefully to their constituents and the country. But this implies higher education to a good many colored people. It will not do for them to have a few men educated as professional politicians. May Heaven save them from the day when they will encourage the growth of such a class of men. They will need to have a large number of educated men in the various walks of life, from whom suitable candidates may be selected, just as white men have. But if they are to have such a class of men, adequate measures must be taken for their higher education, and those friends of the Negro who desire and help to educate him only in primary studies, while they are doing a great and essential work, are not doing all that is needed. It may be all well enough to say to the Negro, "Work hard and keep out of politics." But if he is allowed to enter into politics freely, he will do it just as other men do. There is enough human nature in him to secure that. And any view of this matter that accepts the theory of a free ballot to the Negro, will be short-sighted, if it does not aim at the education of the mass of the Negroes as the mass of the white people are educated, and at the higher education of a proportionally large number of the Negroes. If Congress and Mississippi Conventions should turn their attention in this direction, their work would be more significant than the efforts they are now making.

Notes From The West.

By District-Secretary C.W. Hiatt.

Sylvan, terraced, lacustrine; cottages by the score, gay in color, unique of design; people everywhere, chatty, erudite, artistic, processional; "round tables," "leagues," "societies" and "circles;" lectures, sermons, concerts and conferences—a school, a church, a university—all this, and throughout it all a steady pulse of religious heart and heartiness—such is the Chautauquan Assembly of Bay View, Michigan. One of the important features of this assembly is its annual missionary conference. All denominations participate and the field of the world is brought vividly before the mind by the laborers from here and there.

An interesting testimony by a missionary from Singapore was to the effect that many of the most cultured and generous people he had ever met were Chinese. By the aid of influential Mongolians—though they were heathen—he was once enabled to start a school which grew rapidly till hundreds were enrolled and a permanent religious center of great importance was established. The whole account was thrilling.

Specially kind was the hearing given the representative of the American Missionary Association work, and the eager quest for literature which followed showed that all words had not been lost. Denominational lines were not conspicuous. The black cat of statistics scampered across the rostrum only once or twice. A fitting rebuke to this audacious creature was couched in the story told by a missionary of a visit he had received from another worker on the field, and their mutually forgetting to inquire into each other's church connections, so great was their interest in the tasks in hand. Afterwards, the Methodist brother learned that he had entertained a Baptist unawares—Selah.

An interesting disclosure was recently made, when the organ of Vine St. Congregational Church in Cincinnati was removed from the rear to the front of the auditorium. Midway between ceiling and floor, on either side of the recess, were two doors in the wall. These could only be reached by ladders. What were they for? Ah, they have a history. They open into rooms which, in ante-bellum days, were used as stations of the "underground railway." Here fugitives from across the Ohio were secreted until they could be spirited on, by night, towards the waters of Erie. These doors on the wall speak volumes for the history of the church. I wonder not that even now, though in the very commercial center of the city, far from the residence portion, this church is in full career of evangelistic life. Churches with such doors as those in their walls need not be expected to vegetate, nor to die.

I like to visit the smaller churches as opportunity is given. Their zeal for the causes of humanity is often very intense and intelligent. Sometimes, too, their contributions are a surprise. I know a little country church in Ohio that one day raised forty-six dollars when only forty-five persons were present. It was ten miles by stage from the railroad. Now another gratifying surprise: out of that little flock several people are planning to go to the Northampton meeting.

I also know a church of foreigners, ninety-seven in membership, that raised forty-seven dollars and fifty cents for our work in an evening collection, or about fifty cents per capita. Awhile ago these foreigners were a part of our City problem. By the grace of God, they are now out of the equation, and themselves, in turn, become helpers in solving that other more extensive problem, of the races in the South. Such things as these encourage us.

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The Chicago Theological Seminary is desirous of completing its files of the AMERICAN MISSIONARY for binding. The numbers missing are: February, 1887, October and November, 1871, January, 1862, November, 1861, the first six months of 1858, and all the numbers for 1857. If any one has any of these magazines that he would like to give to the Seminary, he will confer a favor by sending them direct to L.A. Allesbrooke, 45 Warren Ave., Chicago, Ill.